The Conference shows no sign of knowing or caring that the Islamic State said last February that it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. Or that an Islamic State operative recently boasted that, among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had entered Europe. Or that the Lebanese education minister said there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country.

Or that 80% of the migrants who claim to be fleeing the war in Syria aren’t actually from Syria at all, or that German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the Islamic State is sneaking into the country with the refugees and is active in the refugee camps. Why would these “refugees” think they had to present themselves to Europe, which has welcomed the refugees, with false pretenses unless they had nefarious intentions?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is, as Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch points out, “NOT advocating to save the persecuted Christians of Syria through this program.” Instead, bishops such as Robert McManus, Kevin Farrell, Jaime Soto, and others are moving to silence those who speak about the Muslim persecution of Christians, and about the Islamic doctrines mandating warfare against and subjugation of Christians.

After years of tolerating open dissent from core Church teachings, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops moves like a Stalinist regime to silence and ostracize those who dare whisper a hint of dissent from their new and ironclad dogma that Islam is a religion of peace.

To take just one of many sorry examples of how energetically they move to crush dissent on this point, on August 13, 2015, I was the keynote speaker at the annual convocation of the North American Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas (Kevin Farrell’s diocese). I spoke about the global Muslim persecution of Christians. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I was told, sends a representative to the North American Lutheran Church convocation every year. However, this year, when the USCCB found out I was the keynote speaker, they pulled their rep from the Lutheran convocation, lest anyone get the idea that the Catholic Church endorsed a truthful and accurate analysis of the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.

No worries, gentlemen: no one will ever mistake you for people who are interested in telling uncomfortable truths. Watch the video of my talk here, and consider that this talk was too hot for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops enforces obedience to their spurious, self-defeating dogma of Islam being peaceful in pursuit of chimerical “dialogue”. This supposedly all-important Muslim-Christian dialogue hasn’t saved a single Christian from Muslim persecution, or turned one jihadi into a peaceful man.

What this insistence on “dialogue” has actually accomplished is the abandonment of untold numbers of Christians to their fates at the hands of those jihadis. They have been abandoned by those who should have been appealing to the conscience of the global community on their behalf.

This money constitutes 97% of the budget of this corrupt, authoritarian fraternity.

Stories like this should bring down the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, but Catholics are reluctant in the extreme to criticize bishops, no matter what they do, and tend to shun those who dare to speak out anyway. But that attitude is what led to the priest abuse scandals.

For several years I accused Jaime Soto of moral cowardice for withdrawing his representative from a conference where I was speaking, even though I wasn’t speaking about the Muslim persecution of Christians, or anything related to Islam at all. Another speaker then pulled out of the conference because I had dared to criticize a bishop, and conference organizers then nervously told me that it was crossing a red line to accuse a bishop of moral cowardice.

Bishops cannot be guilty of moral cowardice? Bishops cannot be criticized, no matter what they do? Imagine holding a job or position that rendered one immune from criticism!

The bishops, as putative shepherds of souls, should be aware that such immunity is dangerous to one’s soul. Being surrounded by sycophants is never healthy — just look at what became of Elvis when none of his entourage dared suggest he seek help for his pill addiction, or dared tell him that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to fly to Colorado to get a sandwich made with peanut butter, blueberry jam, and a pound of bacon.

What if a bishop really is guilty of moral cowardice? Who will have the courage to bear the ostracism and opprobrium that will come from telling him, and what will become of the bishop if no one does tell him, other than that he will continue to be a moral coward, and probably worse as well?

In light of the fact that they are not perfect beings, and they are far from that, bishops should be aware that sometimes the voice of truth and reason is speaking through their critics, and that to slap down those critics with an authoritarian hand does not automatically render their own position correct. In fact, it may likely demonstrate that their position is incorrect, insofar as it cannot be defended with reason but only propped up by force.

Since bishops are neither impeccable nor infallible, it does no one any good to stay silent when they are doing actual wrong that harms the Church and society as a whole. Catholics seem to have lost sight of that. Acquiescing to evil because a bishop is acquiescing to evil is neither genuine charity nor genuine obedience.

The Church could have and should have been a voice for a genuinely charitable response to the jihad threat, and a robust defense of the value of Judeo-Christian civilization. Instead, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wildly rich courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, rule the day and have their man in the Vatican. Cowardice and appeasement are passed off as “charity.”

The Catholic Church has entered dark days. As the bishops enrich themselves off the flood of refugees pouring into the United States, they can congratulate themselves that no one, not even the “flock” they have betrayed, will hold them accountable for what they have done.